She provides a welcome distraction for millions, but best-selling author Zadie Smith says to write her new book she had to block out addictive websites that lead her astray.

Smith, who wrote the critically-acclaimed White Teeth in 1997, says she struggled to maintain her concentration while writing her new book NW on the computer because of the diversions available just a click on the internet.

RELATED ARTICLES

Share this article

However, others such as Will Self whose new novel Umbrella is on the Man Booker prize list, have mocked the use of the apps.

NEW NOVEL DRAWS ON SMITH'S CHILDHOOD IN LONDON

NW is Zadie Smith's fourth novel and is set in North-West London where the author grew up.

It features Leah and Natalie, who are now in their thirties after growing up together on a local council estate.

Zadie Smith was born as Sadie Smith in the London borough of Brent to a Jamaican mother, Yvonne Bailey, and a British father, Harvey Smith.

As a child she was fond of tap dancing; as a teenager she considered a career as an actress in musical theatre; and as a university student she earned money as a jazz singer and wanted to become a journalist.

White Teeth was her first novel and was introduced to the publishing world in 1997.

'Turn off the computer. Write by hand,' he was quoted as saying in The Telegraph.

Smith writes the first drafts of his own works on a typewriter to escape the temptations of the internet.

He added: The internet is of not relevance at all to the business of writing fiction directly.'

Fellow Booker prize nominee Ned Beauman is another who has admitted to turning to technology to keep the internet at arm's length.

The Teleportation Accident author said he blocked almost all newspapers and magazine websites as well as blogs and Twitter.

For those addicted to social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter the appropriately named AntiSocial app will prevent such access.

Others on the market include K9 and Chrome Nanny which enable users to restrict access to certain sites at particular times of the day.

The inventor of both Freedom and Anti-Social is Fred Stutzman who wanted to restrict his own access to enable him to write his PhD dissertation.

Author Jonathan Franzen has taken the idea of shutting out all other distractions to the extreme.

He claimed he touch-typed parts of his 2001 novel The Corrections by not just switching off the internet, but also wearing earmuffs and a blindfold.

Not impressed: Fellow author Will Self has derided Zadie Smith and others who have turned to technology to block websites while writing books

Advertisement

Share or comment on this article:

Zadie Smith pays tribute to computer software that BLOCKS internet sites allowing her to write new book without distractions